Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“Well, lad, I got the story in bits and pieces from Fred over the years we served together. Mary grew up on the estate under the easy but kindly care of her father, while her brother Jabez sought his fortune in the law courts of London and, a little later, Frederick went off to Sandhurst and glory. When old man Edwards, many years a widower, died, Mary was alone there and, as I understand it, lived with the Trelawneys next door for a while, until Jabez finally decided to sell his share in the London firm and occupy the Edwards farm, modest as it was. While Fred was too discreet to say so openly, I gathered that Mary had become-how shall I say it delicately? — a free spirit.”

“Somewhat wild, you mean?” Marc said. “She seems to have had little adult supervision or discipline.”

“Spoken like a genuine trooper.” Jenkin chuckled. “But true, nonetheless, and alas. However, Jabez soon took her under his wing and-of this I am certain-formed a powerful filial bond with the sister he hadn’t really seen much of in recent years.”

“That is what I’ve always assumed to be the reason behind his inability to speak of her to me or anyone. Even the inadvertent mention of her name could stun him into silence and, occasionally, tears.”

“So when she was seventeen,” Jenkin continued, “he persuaded her to go up to London to Madame Rénaud’s finishing school. She was an exceptionally bright girl, and he felt that three years of music, French, and the domestic arts would make a lady out of her. There were, I believe, even hopes that she might prove a suitable match for one of the Trelawney tribe next door.”

Marc shuddered: his teenage affair with the young ward of Sir Joseph Trelawney had ended disastrously, and was an emotional wound not yet completely healed. “How did Aunt Mary take to the business of being ‘finished’?” he asked.

“Like an unbroken yearling to the bit and bridle,” Jenkin said, with evident approval. “But she stuck it out for almost two years, according to Fred, though by this time-it had to have been about 1809 or ’10-we were both in Portugal and dancing a jig or two with the Iron Duke.”

“Until…”

Jenkin sighed, a heaving belly of a sigh. “Until word came to Jabez from Madame Rénaud herself that, just days before the end of the winter term, Mary Edwards had fallen gravely ill with a fever and the bloody flux.”

“Yes: Uncle Jabez told me that much, once. He said he’d had no warning, and when he rushed up to London by express coach the next morning, she was already dead.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Frederick insists that she was still breathing when Jabez arrived. She died within the hour, in his arms.”

“It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to remember. But surely he had words with Madame Rénaud; he was a lawyer after all,” Marc said.

“I’m sure he did, lad. Fred says that Jabez was torn between anger and remorse. Your uncle Frederick had many letters from him during the subsequent year. They moved him so deeply he could barely bring himself to open them. He burned each of them immediately afterwards.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t alive to see Uncle Jabez in such a state. By the time I was old enough to be aware of him and who he was, I found him the gentlest soul on the face of this earth.”

“I’m sure he came to accept her death eventually. Apparently he did try to sue the school, but his heart wasn’t in it after the initial rage had subsided and simple grief had taken over. The old lady must have known the seriousness of Mary’s illness long before she wrote to Jabez. But what could he do, really?”

“Just bring her home for burial,” Marc replied.

Jenkin sighed again. “The poor man was not able to make even that small gesture. There was suspicion she’d died of typhus, and the authorities apparently compelled him to have her interred in that great stinking maw of a graveyard in central London.”

“But, sir, I saw her grave-marker in our garden every time I headed up into the west woods.” And even now he could picture that slim, white tablet with the tersest possible inscription: “Mary Ann Edwards, 1789–1810”-as if Uncle Jabez could not bear to add one syllable more.

“Aye, lad. The marker is hers all right. But she’s not under it.”

As they rode into the clearing that presaged the hamlet of Port Hope, Marc said, “Thank you for telling me all this, sir. It fills in a lot of the gaps in the story of my adoptive family. In a strange sort of way, I now feel as if I actually had an aunt. Perhaps someday soon I can persuade Uncle Frederick to give me more details. After all, he was closer in age to his sister than Uncle Jabez, and they must have played together often as children.”

“But you won’t tell Jabez about … what I’ve just told you?”

Marc smiled. “No, sir, I shan’t. The last thing in this world I want to do is bring pain to my uncle.”

They rode in silence for a while, and Marc reflected on the strange and surprising story he had just been told. He wished he could have known Aunt Mary, wished Uncle Jabez had been more forthcoming. That he was related to such a determined and unfettered spirit both alarmed and intrigued him.

By the time they drew near to Crawford’s Corners, a winter moon hung like a silver saucer above the tree line in the southeast and cast a swath of shimmering light across the roadway ahead. The cold black sky around it was studded with stars as bright as a newborn’s eyes. Neither had spoken for the past hour and now, in the mysterious calm of evening, it seemed almost profane to do so.

Fourteen months before, en route to his first investigation, Marc had travelled this very road in the dark of a winter night. Memories of that time flooded in. As they approached the crossroads that marked the centre of Crawford’s Corners, Marc could feel the presence of the houses and cabins he knew were camouflaged by the bush and the darkness.

“That must be the light from Durfee’s Inn,” Marc said quietly.

It was a warm, orange glow on the right, no more than twenty yards away.

“We’ll be made most welcome there,” Marc said. “James and Emma Durfee are good people, salt of the earth.”

“They’ll be surprised to see you back here,” Jenkin said. Then, without warning, he brought his mount to a halt in the middle of the intersection. “And that light over there,” he said, “must be from Erastus Hatch’s place. I can see the outline of the mill just behind the house.”

Hatch had helped Marc with his first investigation, and had become a friend. Just to the north of the miller’s land lay the farm of Beth Smallman, leased now to Thomas Good-all and his wife, the former Miss Winnifred Hatch. Beth’s house, which Marc knew well, could not be seen from this vantage-point, but he knew Beth was there, nursing her brother Aaron.

Marc urged his mount straight ahead. The quartermaster’s hand on his elbow stopped him. “I will go on into Durfee’s,” he said gently to Marc. “You are to turn left and make your way up Miller Sideroad.”

“I don’t understand,” Marc said.

“I will carry on to Kingston, and then work my way slowly back westward, doing business with the farmers en route, as I normally do. I should be back in Cobourg in about a week. If you find yourself at leisure here, feel free to make any arrangements with the locals as you see fit, and I’ll endorse them when I get here. But should you find more pressing and pleasant things to do, I will cover this region on my return.”

“But I assumed you brought me along so we might work as a team,” Marc said, genuinely puzzled, though a bizarre and not unsettling notion was now suggesting itself to him. “I still have things to learn from you.”